Applying for passport? No need for birth certificate anymore

All the applicants born after January 1, 1989, had to submit a birth certificate according to the Passport Rules, 1980, which is a mandatory provision.

&nbspPhoto Credit:&nbspIndiatimes, Representative Image

New Delhi: In order to simplify the process for Indian citizen, the government informed Parliament last week that Aadhaar or PAN card among other documents could be used to establish proof of birth and the citizens applying for passports will not need to produce their birth certificate anymore.

All the applicants born after January 1, 1989, had to submit a birth certificate according to the Passport Rules, 1980, which is a mandatory provision.

But according to new procedural steps, applicants can submit their transfer/school leaving/Matriculation Certificate issued by the school last attended/recognised educational board containing the Date of Birth of the applicant; PAN card; Aadhaar Card/E-Aadhaar; Driving Licence, Voter ID cards and even the Life Insurance Corporation policy bonds.

Government employees can submit extracts of service record, pension records, etc. V K Singh said that the aim answering a question in Parliament is to make passports easily available to million more.

The Times of India earlier reported that neither divorce decrees, nor the adoption certificates need to be submitted any longer to get a passport. For orphaned children, the only document needed to confirm their date of birth was a document from their orphanage.

New passports will have personal details printed in both Hindi and English.

The online applicants are only needed to provide the name of the parent or the guardian and the applicants over 60 and below 8 years of age will get a 10 per cent of discount on fees.

The annexes to the passport form have been reduced from 15 to 9, and they only need to be printed out on plain paper, and self-attested. "No attestation/swearing by/before any Notary/Executive Magistrate/First Class Judicial Magistrate would be henceforth necessary. "This also means married applicants don't need to provide a marriage certificate, nor the name of spouse if they are divorced or separated.

All these rules have been in operation since December 2016.

Check the latest facts on Covid-19 here. Times Fact ‘India Outbreak Report’ by TIMES NETWORK and Protiviti is a comprehensive analysis that highlights the impact of the pandemic in India and projects the possible number of active cases in the weeks ahead.